1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of flavorants and particularly pertains to flavorants which impart cooked meat flavor to foodstuffs. More specifically, the present invention is concerned with the preparation of meat flavorants having increased flavor and aromatic intensity and which more closely resemble the natural flavor and aroma of cooked meat.
2. Description of Related Art
The desirability of providing flavoring agents which closely simulate the flavor and aromatic characteristics of cooked meat has long been recognized. Such flavoring agents may, for example, be employed with non-meat sources of protein so as to make them more palatable and as meat-like as possible. So, too, they may also be employed with meat-containing or meat-based foods or vegetable-type foodstuffs such as condensed soups, dried meats, packaged gravies, casseroles, etc., in order to supplement or enhance these foods whose organoleptic properties may have been affected by their processing.
Various expedients have been suggested in the prior art in attempts to provide flavoring agents having the organoleptic profile of cooked meat. Thus, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,934,437 describes the preparation of a meat-like flavor by the reaction of a mixture of monosaccharide and a source of amino acid. U.S. Pat. No. 3,394,015 describes the preparation of a meat-like flavorant from the reaction of a proteinaceous substance with a sulfur-containing compound in the absence of a monosaccharide. U.S. Pat. No. 3,532,514 describes the preparation of a meat-like flavorant from a mixture of an amino acid source, a mono-, di-, tri-, or polysaccharide and an animal or vegetable fat. U.S. Pat. No. 3,394,017 describes the preparation of a meat-like flavorant by reacting thiamine with a sulfur-containing polypeptide or an amino acid mixture derived therefrom and thereafter adding aldehydes and ketones to the product.
These and similar techniques may suffer from a number of disadvantages. Firstly, these meat flavorants may possess only a small fraction of the total flavor and aromatic notes possessed by natural cooked meat. This is attributable, in part, to the particular reactive ingredients employed to produce the flavorants which can provide only a limited number of the required chemical precursors--such as various aldehydes and ketones--which are necessary to obtain the full organoleptic profile of cooked meat.
Moreover, the addition of separately prepared aldehydes and/or ketones to the flavorants in an effort to enhance the organoleptic profile of the flavorant produced is generally uneconomical.
Still further, the intensity or strength of these flavorants may be relatively weak so that a considerable amount of such flavorants would be required to obtain a perceptible flavoring effect upon a foodstuff. This, of course, may be economically undesirable. It would be far more advantageous to employ as little flavorant as possible and still obtain the desired flavoring effect.